Friday, October 2, 1975 The Dally Tar Heel 3
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Editor's note: Today marks the 75th
anniversary of the birth of Thomas Wolfe.
Daring his years at Carolina, Wolfe served
as president of the Dialectic Society
Roger Kirkmari is current president:
by Roger Kirkman
DTH Contributor
Young Tom was almost immediately a
standout at Carolina. At six-foot-three, with
a child's face and a head of hair like a wild
goat, he could hardly have been otherwise.
This impression was soon supplemented by
the discovery that Tom was unusually
gullible compared to the other, old students.
Duped repeatedly by his classmates, Wolfe
went on not one, but several legendary
"snipe hunts."
Tommy Wolfe. The kid who came to UNC
while not yet sixteen years of age. Not that
Carolina was the best; Tom had preferred to
go to Princeton or barring that, Virginia,
both of which rated high in prestige in young
Wolfe's view. However, his father
considered Princeton extravagant and
Virginia a snobbish school widely known in
its capacity for dissipation. Thus, it was
UNC or nothing, for Carolina was a nice
homespun college, led by the young idealist
Edward Kidder Graham. Prodded by
reminders that none of the other seven Wolfe
children had been privileged with such an
educational opportunity, Tommy assented.
Wolfe quickly began to achieve distinction
through his good humor and his abilities,
once he threw off the initial ridicule and
jokestering typical of that day. An avid
debater. Wolfe was made vice president of
the Freshman Debating Club in October of
his freshman year. Shortly afterwards he
joined the Dialectic Literary Society.
Though never an outstanding debater
because of the stutter which developed when
he became excited, Wolfe was nevertheless
awarded honorable mention several times
and participated in the Freshman
Sophomore Inter-Society Debate.
In his sophomore year, Wolfe began his
writing career, selecting death as his theme
a concern which would continue to haunt
him. This first work, entitled A Field in
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Flanders, was a poem in the style of the
popular Have a Rendezvous with Death,
published in November 1917. It was widely
regarded, even in those war years, as
particularly gruesome. Thus christened in
his pursuits, Wolfe gained a measure of
acceptance and began involving himself in
5.
Thomas Clayton Wolfe, brilliant
author, in a typical pose from his college
days. Wofe arrived at Carolina in 1916, a
shabbily-dressed freshman from
Asheville who was only 16 years old.
many extracurricular activities. By all
appearances. Tom was one of the most
popular men on campus at UNC even in his'
first years.
Wolfe also began to cultivate an interest in
acting, though at first he did not confine it to
the theatre. He became known for the oddity
of his appearance, albeit a likeable one,
which he incorporated into his act. At times
during his English 21 class, taught by the
formidable Dr. Edwin Greenlaw, Wolfe
would read themes apparently written in
haste on the backs of envelopes, inside
matchbook covers and on crumpled sheets
of paper which emerged from his many
pockets. At one point, Tom came in with an
essay written on a roll of toilet paper, much
to the unrestrained amusement of the class,
for whose benefit the deed was done. Dr.
Greenlaw, however, was as imperturbable as
always until the finish.
"Tell me, Mr. Wolfe," Greenlaw said, "are
we to judge the quality of your essay by the
quality of the paper on which it is written?"
The wit and jocularity on campus was
soon to end for Wolfe with the death of his
roommate, Edmund Burdick, in May of
1918. A fellow Ashevillian and member of
the Di Society, Burdick, along with Paul
Green, was one of the two outstanding and
promising scholars in the sophomore class.
Burdick's death, because of a congenital
heart problem, hit the acutely sensitive
Wolfe so hard that he could no longer bear to
remain in the room the two had shared.
The following fall, Wolfe continued his
interest in extracurricular affairs, being
named managing editor of the Tar Heel in
early October. Later that month, Tom
received word that his favorite brother, Ben,
was very ill with pneumonia, and Wolfe
immediately took the next train to Asheville.
When the train stopped at Morganton,
Wolfe received word that Ben was already
dead.
After Ben's funeral, Wolfe traveled back
to UNC to learn that the president, Edward
K. Graham, had been struck down in the
influenza epidemic and had died some days
before. Graham's death was soon followed
by that of the new acting president, Marvin
Hendrix Stacy, who succumbed to the
influenza himself within a few months.
The death of Graham was perhaps melded
by Wolfe with that of his brother Ben, for
Wolfe soon introduced a motion before the
Di Society for the composition of a
memorial to Dr. Graham.
Wolfe's judgment of Graham is an
unsettled question. The paeans to America
and the democratic spirit in You Can't Go
Home Again show the influence of Graham's
speeches. But in the last weeks of his life,
Wolfe wrote: "How unsatisfying those
speeches were the core lacking the
terms of an abstract philosophy applied to
hunger and thirst."
Through this personal turmoil Wolfe
continued his work, particularly his work as
de facto editor of the Tar Heel. In the
aftermath of the influenza epidemic Wolfe
found a new guide in Professor Frederick
Koch, the founder of the Carolina
Playmakers. Possibly at Wolfe's insistence,
Koch was elected to honorary membership
in the Di Society in the spring of 1919.
Under "Prof" Koch's direction, Wolfe
wrote his first play, Tfie Return of Buck
Gavin, which was based on the death of a
Texas outlaw, Patrick Lavin. Wolfe changed
the initial of his last name and transferred the
setting to the mountains of North Carolina.
Perhaps with the memory of Ben as a
catalyst, Wolfe had Gavin return to put
flowers on the grave of a fallen comrade. To
complete his creation. Koch encouraged
Wolfe to play the part of Gavin, which
appealed to Wolfe's penchant for acting.
Soon after the play's production, Wolfe
acquired the nickname "Buck."
Credited with this first success, Wolfe
surpassed himself in campus life again and
again, becoming editor of the Tar Heel,
winning the coveted Worth Prize in
Philosophy and attaining the honor of
membership in the Golden Fleece. At his
graduation, Wolfe was of course the
standout, reading his farewell ode as class
poet, and being voted Best Writer, Wittiest
and Most Original by the senior class.
Although his career was just being
launched with the approval of all his fellow s,
at heart Wolfe still felt the loner. Indeed, at
the end of his life, Wolfe wrote: "From my
fifteenth year, save for a single interval, 1
have lived about as solitary a life as a modern
man can live." He lived as an actor, hiding
his fear of mortality, concealing this inner
core behind a facade which many enjoyed
but few could pierce.
m
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